With SoA, What Direction Should FFXI Take?

[Chamaan]

Progression unlocked area please. Massive Aztec temple, yes.

Thinking about what I'd like for a big fight that might be challenging~ You know what I'd really like to see? A battle against either a single enormous enemy or three smaller enemies in different locations in a zone with tied HP. Like in the final battle of FF7 where you can split up your teammates into three parties. Separate the three alliance parties at the start of the operation so they can't run to each other or all team up on a single enemy. Or provide an incentive to fighting the components separately.

It'd be nice to balance out alliance parties again instead of sticking all the Blms into one party, the corsair and all the ukonvasaras in another, etc. No more song/roll rotations. Just communication with the other parties because you can't see what's going on with the other two components of the fight. Shared HP pool so if the other groups screw up your party can be the real big-dick G's and keep up the fight. Each group is on their own handling their own shit or the other two parties suffer.

Could also throw in some gimmicks like if one party casts the wrong debuff it makes the other aspects rage. Or they have shifting damage resistances or something.

[Celebrindor]

Wouldn't mind SE taking a page from Rift and basically implementing Campaign on crack.

Better design zones for monster invasions with various bases and objectives for defense/offense. You can then take it a step further and have bigger events every couple hours or so where the mobs just go full throttle with other objectives. If players lose, they'll just need to reclaim the pertinent points later. They win? Keep their resources and get a nice chunk of non-tradeable currency as a reward. Play enough, then you can buy decent gear. Something should always be going on in these zones, though, to keep people from twiddling their thumbs in boredom.

one problem with this is that as the world of FFXI grows and the playerbase shrinks, keeping enough people interested in such events long enough to make such massive "pickup" style encounters viable becomes very difficult, if not impossible. Besieged bears absolutely no resemblance to its former self- I haven't participated in over 2 years, yet whenever I return to Aht Urghan and need the CC NPC, there they are, never kidnapped. Campaign is quite empty.

They can even get creative with the above and allow non-combative tasks. Wanna build a catapult for invading that enemy base? Slap on the HELM gear and go log a bit. Or if you have woodworking skill, partake in some mini-game to refine collected resources. So on and so forth. And shit needs to be real-time, not time-delayed like Conquest/Campaign results.

Now that is very creative, and not just because I craft. Would have never thought about including HELM/crafting in a way like that.

....Obsessing over the perfect BC fight, locking zones behind quests, cheap difficulty quirks like pathos, or demanding content only a select few can do really isn't the way to go, I think. People should want to come together randomly to accomplish a given task for a greater good, not get all snobby and exclusive with just a clique or a linkshell, worrying about who deserves to lot what in absence of point systems.

The problem is that when you have a game that encourages grouping for so many years, then introduces mass-gameplay such as Besieged/Campaign it doesn't exactly have the staying power. Not to mention that I'd rather gather up with a few friends and spend my time ingame with them than in a mass environment that actually is harder to socialize in than the linkshell environment.

A functional mass battle feel is very cool- I definitely remember them having to cap Besieged because everyone rushed to do it because it was so much fun- but again, it lacks the staying power. However I think we'll see something of this nature in the expansion, no question about it.

[arus2001]

Campaign and Beseiged lacked staying power because SE didn't put enough carrots. Though, Beseiged also had the issue of infrequency. If all the Campaign general WS could've been acquired via buying a max rank weapon and then doing some kind of trial off it to permanently learn, you might see people bitching about the process, but it'd also be something to do. For those more interested in making a buck, instead of mass farming Dark Rings to NPC or blinker your cruor, event points could also sell in-demand craft goods or even shit like HMP for all I care.

Add new events to the system with future updates and things can stay fresh. Sure, popularity will dwindle over time with spurts of people focusing on the next new thing, but if you hit a point where it only seems like X number of people are regularly participating, you can also back and scale difficulty down. OR! Invent those systems from the start so a boss spawning with 15 people in the zone won't have nearly the same HP as one that spawns with 150. Though, I do worry a bit about the game engine, as Beseiged certainly had its moments of server-caused FPS slideshows and bugginess.

[NynJa]

Also.
More.Solo.Content. And something thats actually worthwhile.

I dont get the hypocrisy

Abyssea evolved into content that anyone can solo (and by solo I mean 2box), and a huge bitchfest about it is how "any idiot can 2box mnk+whm and beat abyssea". And now people want "more solo content"?

[Taim Meich]

Since when 2boxing is soloing? I'm really not interested in soloable content, but I find pretty nonsensical calling abyssea "soloable" when it isn't.

[Septimus]

I dont get the hypocrisy

Abyssea evolved into content that anyone can solo (and by solo I mean 2box), and a huge bitchfest about it is how "any idiot can 2box mnk+whm and beat abyssea". And now people want "more solo content"?

Because it is not hypocrisy. Some people want low-man content, some people want large-alliance fights. Most of the people bitching about Abyssea being too low-man friendly are idiots.

[NynJa]

Since when 2boxing is soloing?

I mean really, I thought I put a pretty obvious disclaimer in the brackets...but I'm pretty sure if you wanted to, you could farm seals on melee/dnc solo, and maybe even some +2 items.

Answer me this though, why do you want solo content? Do you think SE's gonna put god tier gear in content that can be soloed? They're gonna put mid tier gear (something along the lines of the +1 Neo-NI gear) in content that can be soloed, and because its mid-tier gear, no ones gonna bother with it. Sorry to break it to you, but you're on something if you think otherwise.


Having said that, after the direction SE has taken, considering legion is a pretty huge fail, I hope SE sticks to 18 person max content that DOESNT require mass spamming of PD / Embrava.

[Yugl]

I mean really, I thought I put a pretty obvious disclaimer in the brackets...but I'm pretty sure if you wanted to, you could farm seals on melee/dnc solo, and maybe even some +2 items.

Answer me this though, why do you want solo content? Do you think SE's gonna put god tier gear in content that can be soloed? They're gonna put mid tier gear (something along the lines of the +1 Neo-NI gear) in content that can be soloed, and because its mid-tier gear, no ones gonna bother with it. Sorry to break it to you, but you're on something if you think otherwise.


Having said that, after the direction SE has taken, considering legion is a pretty huge fail, I hope SE sticks to 18 person max content that DOESNT require mass spamming of PD / Embrava.

Since when 2boxing is soloing? I'm really not interested in soloable content, but I find pretty nonsensical calling abyssea "soloable" when it isn't.

That is all.

[NynJa]

That is all.

Also.
More.Solo.Content. And something thats actually worthwhile.

The only part of my reply that was directed at Meich was the first paragraph...everything else was in general.

[Taim Meich]

While I don't want solo content (or more specifically, I don't want to limit myself to that, I will solo ocassionally because it's fun), I can understand how some people do. Those are the kind of laid back, casual players that consider an amazing accomplishment having one or several AF3 +2 pieces, because they generally just do campaign, or fiddle around soloing here and there, or maybe level lowbie jobs, etc. Those people really won't be aiming at high-end gear, they just want stuff to be entertained with in the expansion. as far as the ones I know is concerned, I bet they'll be happy enough with exploring around, opening zones by themselves or in duo/trio, exing with the new mobs, etc. But if you give those players something like campaign, or enemies of the difficulty caliber of abyssea seals NMs for some intermediate rewards, they'll just love it, and won't be complaining around about that stuff being inferior to the high-end content equipment.

This whole reasoning is why I questioned your definition of "soloing", because the soloers we're talking about are not striving for efficiency and autonomy, they just want stuff to do alone, whether it's because of time zone, kids not letting them join groups reliably, or just because they're loners.


P.D.: I just re-read SephYuyX's quote before posting, and, depending on his definition of "worthwhile", my whole paragraph is pretty much not applied to him. Unless he will content himself with the kind of rewards I just described, I doubt SE will give more than that to pure soloers.

[Yugl]

They could accommodate solo players via quests. Reward with convenience and gradual upgrades. Essentially, make merits the "snowflake" character boost SE wants and have a set of questions for enhancing the character, but not aimed at specialization.

[NynJa]

Campaign was popular then because it offered relatively easy xp for the effort involved and you could go at your own pace. The only reason people do it now is for AN to get voiddust, even after adjusting xp return. True or false?

[Yugl]

Campaign offered gear too. Less so for well geared players (Mostly items like DNC piece, DT Lance, mACC book, Iron ram, Rose Strap, and other accessories). Even more so for casual players that wanted to gear terribly (Cobra gear). The other reason was to keep access to money BCs such as Splitting Heirs and the Yagudo BC.

[SephYuyX]

The new mole game is sort of a finger to solo content. Why should I be forced to use 3 people when I could solo on BLM or BST?

[Gwynplaine]

I think it's very like the Adoulin "side guilds" system is going to be mostly solo-ish stuff similar to high level Campaign Ops. Except hopefully they don't suck. Or probably somewhere between Campaign Ops, and FFXIV Guildleves. You flag a thing, you do a thing, you get reward for thing. Area of thing effects part of the "Reclamation" system or whatever it's gonna be.

[Gwynplaine]

The new mole game is sort of a finger to solo content. Why should I be forced to use 3 people when I could solo on BLM or BST?

Because Square is too cheap to use servers that would actually instance the zones for many dozens of players. Then the zones would be full too easy. And that's why Assault, Salvage, and Nyzul will never lose its 3man entrance prereq.

Honestly can we hold like a fucking kickstarter to make Square buy real instanced servers? Let's make this happen...

[Spira]

i like soloable content... but not for top-tier gear. I think Abyssea doesn't do this too badly, except that I play BST so I could solo pretty much everything in Visions and Scars and when +2 items were dropping off there (back in 90 cap) i really could just pick the easiest path for me. But, even mid-tier or a precursor to actual top tier gear being soloable is welcome to me.
I suppose the logic is, if we're gonna gather to do something, we might as well make sure its worth our time (or has a chance to be).

I'd actually really love to see them do updates/expansions to WotG content. Its evident they wanted to bring the old end-game up to speed a little, hence they added stuff for Dynamis, Limbus, Nyzul, Einherjar and Salvage.. but what of WotG content?
Granted a majority of it wasn't ever top-tier endgame stuff, I think they could easily breathe new life into those areas and still get people to go.

Besieged and Campaign. I think Besieged is a bit of a lost cause but its still an easy source of Imperial Standing for anyone who can't be bothered to exp/find a mirror. Campaign on the other hand could have a lot going. It won't be hard to introduce new trial weapons for Campaign exclusive NPC WS, whereby they need to unlock it in Campaign only.
And make it so that you'd need to be able to find the corresponding hero/freelance in campaign to turn in your weapon. Honestly they could do the same for Besieged general WS too. Most of the WS already do something special or are pretty flashy, so people will be interested.
Since the glamor of those expansions is over, theres no harm giving them to players now. That and I don't think people mind having new WS to play with.

The rest of the WotG content tho... ANNM is a real pity. The augment system was too random. The rare good stat rolls back in the day no longer mean anything, and this is actually an event that has absolutely no supply limitation, since its open environment and there are so many zones to go to. If they would just stick a new reward in there that is a resource creator, people will start doing that again. They could allow that same resource to drop from all zones so people can pick their poison. For what its worth, there were some fun fights in there.

Evoliths. A part of me wish it never happened. The old system thats already implemented is a mess.. They could just scrap it.. but if they simplified it and allowed a newer Evolith system to be implemented almost like how abjuration scraps work, except that you can expect an outcome with Evolith (which is exactly what people wanted) then it'd actually work this time. I mean.. Evolith in concept was never an issue. it was the shitty sidegrade implementation.. and I STILL think the Fomor weapons look great. I love my Sarissa to bits even tho I don't even play DRG anymore.
They could still build on the old system by letting players craft fomor weapon+1 which are catered to lv99.

We still have over half a year to SoA, so there should be time for them to touch on these older areas as well. As in, it might seem unrealistic but i'm hoping that since they're already renewing old events they might as well do that for all the major redundant ones.

[Kaisha]

After playing TERA for a couple months, I want some fucking HNM fights that require more than just the standard zergfest, or the classic setup of tank holding mobs, mages on one side to dodge most AoEs/be in healing range of tank/DDs, and DDs on the other side of mob. Throw in some environmental hazards on a regular basis (hardly any fights made use use of mines/tubes/fetters), and have ebon panels that actually do shit for a fight, possibly to weaken the enemy or stagger it from doing something that'd rape you otherwise.

Last time I remember doing a fight that was interesting was Diabolos, and that was because of the floor trap, although that eventually became a non-issue once people figured out where the safe spots were since the floor gimmick had set states.

The new mole game is sort of a finger to solo content. Why should I be forced to use 3 people when I could solo on BLM or BST?

Blame the developer's insistence on not implementing a truly instanced zone system.

[Spira]

it makes me wonder.. can they? is there something holding them back from doing real instances?

im thinking introducing new zones isn't a problem. its moreso having more copies within the same zone.. cos if they just created multiple zones of the same name, people in the same zone will see others as being in a different zone?

They should probably just introduce a bunch of new tunnel zones and allow the event to be held there too. It could be a copy pasta of Everbloom/Ghoyu/Ruhotz for all i care if it alleviates congestion. It's not like those areas hold significance with being tied to MMM or Meeble Burrows..

...one thing I think would be interesting is if SE held like a create-a-battlefield contest on the forums to get people to give their ideas for battlefields based on a number of basic conditions and then pick the best few. It's not like people don't post stuff like that already, but sometimes crowdsourcing is a useful way to create fun content. It's also community building..

[Kaisha]

Instancing is all server-side essentially, no? There wouldn't be a need for duplicate mob listings for every potential instance as it currently stands since the client wouldn't 'see' these dupes, and that it'd all be handled internally by the server.